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'Team effort at West Ham' - Lewis

Posted on 19 August 2014
- 09:24

“Everyone wants to fight for each other,” proclaimed Lewis Holtby as he reflected on our opening day win at West Ham.

The German international midfielder went on as part of a double substitution made by Head Coach Mauricio Pochettino at the weekend, as we continued on the offensive despite a numerical disadvantage in the wake of Kyle Naughton’s first half dismissal and a subsequent missed penalty by the Hammers’ Mark Noble.

A second yellow card shown to James Collins then saw the home side also reduced to 10 men, before Eric Dier popped up three minutes into stoppage time to seal a 1-0 win for us.

Lewis believes the result stands us in great stead for the games to come and praised the spirit of the squad after we recovered from the blow of Kyle’s dismissal to take all three points.

“It was a very emotional game with the way everything started – the red card and the missed penalty,” said the 23-year-old.

“The way everyone put their bodies on the line for 90 minutes and fought as a team was great and everyone worked brilliantly as a team. That’s the kind of character we need, especially in games like these.

“There is big spirit in the team. When you go out on the pitch you feel that everyone wants to fight for each other – we’ve built this special dressing room atmosphere. If you’ve got that atmosphere like we did today then we can do something special this season.

“Credit to everyone who played and who didn’t play because it’s a team effort.”